Hot Springs, Va.

Opened before the nation was born, The Homestead occupies 15,000 rolling acres in a verdant valley walled in by the Allegheny Mountains. While the resort's hot springs, warm as new milk, have attracted pilgrims eager to "take the cure" since 1766, The Homestead has welcomed golfers since the end of the 19th century. The Homestead Course, which encircles the rambling red brick hotel, claims the oldest first tee in continuous use in the United States (1892). Serious golfers tend to gravitate to the Cascades Course, a William S. Flynn design ranked among the nation’s finest mountain courses. At the resort’s new Canyon Ranch SpaClub, the basis of many treatments remains the naturally heated mineral waters that emerge from the resort's springs. (The hottest temperature is 106 degrees, the coolest 102.5 degrees). Serious spa-goers can make the pilgrimmage to the nearby Warm Springs Pools, where the soft, alkaline, slightly effervescent waters flow at a rate of 1,200 gallons per minute through the center of the Gentlemen’s Pool House, which was built in 1761 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. (Thomas Jefferson took the waters here).